Monday, September 12, 2005

It's A Good Presidency

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States.... The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

And from a synopsis and analysis of classic Twilight Zone episode "It's A Good Life," presented as a metaphor for Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

Anthony Fremont is a six-year-old with extraordinary powers to control the little town where he lives by simply wishing away people and things that anger or bore him. He has isolated the town by banishing electricity and cars. Other than his powerful wishing, Anthony has the mind and imagination of a typical little boy.... The people in Peaksville have to smile all the time, think happy thoughts, and say happy things, because that's what Anthony commands and, if they disobey, he can wish them into a cornfield or change them into grotesque versions of themselves. Anthony dislikes singing and punished Aunt Amy for thoughtlessly singing in his presence.

(snip)

Comment: Substitute a big person for the arbitrarily vindictive little boy and this story also gives a general idea of how groups, including families, work when they are dominated by narcissists. But bear in mind that there's a necessary requirement for such a reign of terror to continue: the isolation of a captive audience. One of the ways tyrannical narcissists isolate their captives is by telling them that they must keep secret what goes on inside or face dreadful punishment, because they're so special that no one outside the group is capable of understanding them.... For a real-life example, see the story of the Phelps family.

For all intents and purposes, our country is at the mercy of an extremely powerful, but shallow and petulant child whom no-one dares contradict. The results have been predictably tragic, and there is no reason to hope for improvement.

Now I'd like to introduce you to some of the people of Washington, D.C. This is Mr. Cheney. It's in his whitehouse that the monster resides. This is Mrs. Bush. And this is Condoleeza Rice, who probably had more control over the monster in the beginning than almost anyone. But one day she forgot. She began to sing aloud. Now, the monster doesn't like singing, so his mind snapped at her, and turned her into the smiling, vacant thing you're looking at now. She sings no more.